We are so excited that AK Press will be publishing the second, revised, and expanded edition of Captive Genders in October 2015. Along with all the brilliance of the first edition, it will include a new foreword by abolitionist and trans revolutionary CeCe McDonald which explores the importance radical books like Captive Genders played for her during her incarceration. From her prison cell, Chelsea E. Manning wrote “On the Intersection of the Military and the Prison Industrial Complex,” which thinks about the relationship between and military and the prison system. TGIJP Executive Director Janetta Johnson and journalist Toshio Meronek wrote, “Custody’s Long Shadow: Reentry Support as Abolitionist Work,” which argues that supporting people after they are released is vital to abolition. Radical Native transgender activist-scholar Kalaniopua Young wrote, “From a Native Trans Daughter: Carceral Refusal, Settler Colonialism, Re-routing the Roots of an Indigenous Abolitionist Imaginary,” which brings into focus the unsettled histories of colonialism, forced gender normativity, and prison.
The powerful analysis and compelling arguments in this collection force readers to conclude that the political and theoretical connection between prison abolition and trans and queer liberation is fundamental to social transformation and justice. –Beth E. Ritchie author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation
Captive Genders reminds and instructs that life is about relationships and desires free from neglect and repression, gendered constraints, policing and brutality, and disappearance. The anthology contributors share transformational insights, mini-memoirs, analyses and theories about captivity. Their writings lead and nurture us to a deeper understanding and struggle for justice with freedom and peace. –Joy James, author of Seeking the Beloved Community
Captive Genders is an essential book that brings home that trans and gender non-conforming lives are deeply structured by the prison, that violence can never be an antidote to violence, that abolition must extend to the gender binary, and that formerly incarcerated Black trans women will lead the way. –Jin Haritaworn, author of Queer Lovers and Hateful Others: Regenerating Violent Times and Places
We will be doing a few book related events to celebrate the second edition. If you would like to help bring us to your city/town hit us up at captivegenders@gmail.com
Check out two new reviews of the second edition of Captive Genders. The first is O’Brien on Stanley and Smith, ‘Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex’ by Michelle E. O’Brien and the second is The Forgotten Ones: Queer and Trans Lives in the Prison System by Grace Dunham which appears in The New Yorker.
